Some n00b is going to read this, and say "ooo, the 7th best LF in a league is worth 13% on my cap, I better get bidding!"

This will get bumped again a year from now with a further cautionary tale.

I am sorry that you were the sucker who bid for him, but I don't think less of you because of it.

You're wrong, first of all you are basing your opinions on a player who is only halfway developed... for example he has improved:

Defensively:

+7 RA
+9 GL
+7 AS
+7 AA
+25 DU
+6 HE

Offensively:

+10 CN
+3 PW
+10 LH
+7 RH
+5 BE
+5 BR

With 81 makeup, a 91 Fielding instructor and 77 Hitting coach and a $20 Mil training budget, you can safely assume that those development numbers will nearly double by the time he is done developing, he will end up being:

General & Fielding Ratings

Event

Season

Height

Weight

OV

RA

GL

AS

AA

PC

DU

HE

SP

PA

TP

MK

Current

-

5-9

167

90

84

64

62

62

9

90

77

100

51

50

81

Batting & Pitching Ratings

Event

Season

CN

PW

LH

RH

BE

BR

BU

PP

ST

CT

LH

RH

VE

GB

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Current

-

100

57

100

79

73

57

71

41

20

1

5

6

3

34

44

0

0

0

0

Secondly, he can play 2B or 3B in a pinch and he was by far the best offensive player taken during the IFA period

i mean if you're basically getting 10 seasons of a guy for a grand total of $45M or so, and his open market value is $12-15M/year, how is it not a complete slam dunk to add him for $24M. Even once you factor in the cost of IFA scouting and the $4M lost in transfers, you're still getting pretty sick marginal value.

His market value looks to be $8M for a high, and more likely the type who fades as he's not worth giving up a pick.

Because of that, he's most likely getting market value extensions in arbitration to get to the 10 years, so really you're only going to be below market for the first 6 years (with AAA delay). Probably paying somewhere around $6-8M for those first five years. Plus $24M. Plus the transfer penalty, which could be argued should all go to this guy because if you put that money towards FA you wouldn't transfer, but we'll only count $4M.

So $6 to 8+24+4= $34-36M in cost

I personally don't see him getting more than $6M, so over the 6 years is $36M. You have essentially paid free agent market value for the guy, lost games for 4 years waiting for him to progress when you could have been spending that money on Free Agents who will produce similarly.

Posted by jonas1102 on 12/8/2011 12:30:00 AM (view original):His market value looks to be $8M for a high, and more likely the type who fades as he's not worth giving up a pick.

Because of that, he's most likely getting market value extensions in arbitration to get to the 10 years, so really you're only going to be below market for the first 6 years (with AAA delay). Probably paying somewhere around $6-8M for those first five years. Plus $24M. Plus the transfer penalty, which could be argued should all go to this guy because if you put that money towards FA you wouldn't transfer, but we'll only count $4M.

So $6 to 8+24+4= $34-36M in cost

I personally don't see him getting more than $6M, so over the 6 years is $36M. You have essentially paid free agent market value for the guy, lost games for 4 years waiting for him to progress when you could have been spending that money on Free Agents who will produce similarly.

Posted by jonas1102 on 12/8/2011 12:30:00 AM (view original):His market value looks to be $8M for a high, and more likely the type who fades as he's not worth giving up a pick.

Because of that, he's most likely getting market value extensions in arbitration to get to the 10 years, so really you're only going to be below market for the first 6 years (with AAA delay). Probably paying somewhere around $6-8M for those first five years. Plus $24M. Plus the transfer penalty, which could be argued should all go to this guy because if you put that money towards FA you wouldn't transfer, but we'll only count $4M.

So $6 to 8+24+4= $34-36M in cost

I personally don't see him getting more than $6M, so over the 6 years is $36M. You have essentially paid free agent market value for the guy, lost games for 4 years waiting for him to progress when you could have been spending that money on Free Agents who will produce similarly.

You're not getting surplus value with this guy.

I think it's insanely conservative to cap his open market value at $8M. I don't think his expectancy is quite $12-15M (those were just arbitrary figures) but he could very easily be like a .300/.365/.480 hitter with + D in LF, which is easily worth > $10M per year. He also could be a .275/.340/.440 type which is more of a $4-5M type value, but it's wrong to cap his upside as $8M/year.

Posted by jonas1102 on 12/8/2011 3:29:00 PM (view original):With an .845 OPS, in a .760 OPS environment at a corner OF spot with plus defense the best real life comp would be 2007 Nick Markakis who put up 4.3 WAR.

A replacement team puts up 48 wins, so there are 33 wins distributed per team. Times 32 teams is 1056 wins.

$80M is the average payroll in that world, $4M for minors, so $76M per team, or $2,432M in the world.

$2,432M / 1056 wins = $2.3M per Win

$2.3M x 4.3 = $9.89M, so maybe I was low with $8M, but he shouldn't get more than $10M.

Using the ratings and comparing to what I think replacement value ratings are in HBD I get about the same WAR as jonas did.

Guesstimating his FA demands based on a projected OVR, I think you have to pay him $24M + $4M transfer cost + 0.12M minor league salary + 1.4M pre-arb major league salary + 7.5M (arb 1 + arb 2 salary) +$36M/5 years automatic re-up. Or about $77M for about 47 WAR (11 seasons of 4.3 WAR). If $2.3M/WAR is the going rate in that world, you get him for about $33M less than what you would expect to pay for those WAR.

The only problem with that analysis is that I have seen LF be an easier position to fill in FA-- $2.3M/WAR is not a good deal at LF, and it's outstanding at SP. You can get a 33-yo 2 WAR LF for $3M just about at will late in FA in all of my worlds... and at $1.5M/WAR Cairo's about a break-even proposition.

I understand that $$/WAR is not linear, and that you pay more per WAR for genuinely good players, because you do have to amass 45-50 WAR to make the playoffs. So the money wasn't wasted, especially given the vagaries of the FA market and the fact that he can flex to 3B in a pinch it was a good signing. But it wasn't a killer bargain, either.